The only real difference between the Japanese yōkai, the multitude of spirits that inhabit the country’s traditional stories, and the mythological creatures of other nations is that there has been more of historical trend towards treating yōkai as a collective group of popular characters rather than just creatures in various stories. Although they originate in tales that are often meant to be scary (or at least creepy), most yōkai have ended up becoming more like weird but lovable mascots than figures of terror, and despite often coming from different contexts, they’ve also been treated as one big group for even longer. Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (called The Great Yōkai War in Japan) is an example of how they’ve come to be used in culture—the second in a loose trilogy produced by Gamera/Daimajin studio Daiei (just to further solidify the connection between this and Daimajin, this movie is directed by that movie’s cinematographer), the only thing that seems to connect the three movies are the yōkai themselves, a whole host of them brought to life with sixties tokusatsu ingenuity. Considering that most kaiju films, and Japanese media about monsters in general (even later when you get to stuff like Pokémon) are heavily indebted to depictions of yōkai, it seems rather obvious that they’d get some movies made about them in this style. It’s an homage to where much of the monster movie tradition in the country originated.
More than anything, Spook Warfare wants to get across the idea that the yōkai represent Japan as a whole, the spirits of the country and its stories, with a complicated but mostly positive relationship with its people. It does this by introducing a plot about an alien force coming in and wreaking havoc—in this case, an ancient Babylonian vampire demon-god named Daimon, who is accidentally released by treasure hunters pilfering the ruins of the city of Ur, and then flies all the way to Japan for reasons unexplained. That is how this movie opens! It’s amazing! Since this is another period fantasy, Daimon finds and vampirizes a lord, possesses his body, returns to his castle, and then proceeds to order his servants to destroy all the traditional religious symbols in the place while secretly turning some of the vassals into his possessed minions. This is noticed by not only the lord’s daughter and one of his more astute servants, but also by the local kappa, who can see that the lord is really Daimon in disguise. His attempts to drive the demon out prove futile, and both he and the loyal vassal seek outside help—in the case of the latter, it’s with his very loud and intense Buddhist monk uncle, who provides with him with a ritual to exorcise Daimon, but dies when they attempt to use it (but he also gave his nephew a bow and arrow, which proves to be useful later on.) The kappa, on the other hand, goes to all his yōkai buddies, trying to convince them that the demon invader is real, even though they initially disbelieve him because Daimon is not in their yōkai encyclopedias and registries (the spirit world prides itself on its rigorous bookkeeping.) It’s only after Daimon begins feasting on the blood of children and the yōkai save a pair of them (and unlike all the other kaiju movies of this period, the kids don’t become major characters) that they realize that it’s time for…spook warfare. Or a great yōkai war. Whichever you prefer.
Even though they come in many shapes and sizes—a little fleshy blob, a towheaded sage, or a normal-looking woman who just happens to have a monster face on the back of her head (Pokémon fans: she’s what Mawile is based on)—we see that the one thing that bonds together all these supernatural creatures is that they are Japanese supernatural creatures (and are even tied very directly to specific places and people in the country, like the kappa is, reflective of how spirits were treated as everyday things in the original stories), who don’t take kindly to evil supernatural creatures from other countries barging in and making a mess of things. At multiple points, we hear the human characters emphatically refer to them as “Japanese apparitions”, and one or more of the yōkai say things like “let’s show him what Japanese spirits can do!”, which makes the subtext of the movie even more explicit, if a plot that can be summarized as “beloved local characters drive out secret foreign influence on country’s leaders” doesn’t already do that (also: yet another period fantasy that has to do with corrupt lords oppressing people, just like Daimajin and The Magic Serpent—the difference here is that the corruption is not the fault of the lord himself.) Japan has probably not had many issues with Babylonian demon-gods, but come on, you know what they’re really talking about.
The movie is everything silly and endearing about tokusatsu: a bunch of distinctive costumed characters running around acting for the back seats. The special effects are, as one would expect from a monster movie from 1968, not always particularly believable, but it doesn’t matter because they’re just so likeable—the one-eyed, one-legged umbrella spirit kasa-obake is pretty clearly a marionette (and also this movie’s goofy, sub-verbal “cute” character, like a proto-Gizmo or Slimer), but it’s still a one-legged, one-eyed umbrella that is a major character in a movie, which is great. I watch fantasy movies in order to see things that you can’t see anywhere else, regardless of how “believable” it is— images like characters watching TV images on the potbelly of a rat man, or a woman fighting a demon by stretching her neck. What the movie lacks in realism, it more than makes up for it in personality—every yōkai gets a moment to be their weird self, and seeing them all interacting with each other is delightful. Plus, this movie is shot fairly well, the early scenes in the ruins of Ur in particular are very cool-looking, and while it certainly doesn’t have the huge vistas that Daimajin had to work with, its smaller sets still provide all the appropriate atmosphere—despite the seemingly epic scope of the story, the yōkai themselves seem more at home in rustic settings. The only time the direction gets a little unclear is at the very end, when dozens upon dozens of yōkai battle Daimon (who splits into multiple forms and then transforms into a giant) in a black void, and it becomes a hazy and confusing—considering the logistics of the scene, it’s probably to be expected, but you still feel a little disappointed that you don’t get as many good looks at all the additional characters and costumes that only show up in this part.
Another thing that I like about it is that it clearly loves these monsters, and is kinda playing for an audience who are expected to know and love these monsters too—there’s no explanation for most of them (the kappa gets to introduce himself, but that’s about it), you’re just supposed to recognize that these are all famous yōkai and of course they hang out together. They also have rules in the movie that are not fully explained, but that’s because they were a known tradition in Japan—like how the yōkai are affected by talismans, which at one point leads to them being sealed in a pot when they accidentally make contact with one, which then forces the two spirits without any powerful abilities to save them. The traditional details and abilities of these creatures are faithfully integrated into the movie (although they still have to be a bit removed from their origin stories to work here), which makes the depiction of them as characters feel even more distinctive. Spook Warfare even ends on the image of the triumphant yōkai hordes marching into the mists, a common image in Japan with a long history, which is all the more reason to include it in this historically-minded yōkai epic.
I’m certain Japanese audiences of the time could be expected to cheer on their heroic traditional monsters, but the movie works in a way that makes the enthusiasm infectious. Fifty years later and in a different country entirely, and I think these weird spirits are rad as hell, and seeing them in this battle-of-the-mythologies scenario makes them even cooler. The combination of the usual fun of a kaiju movie and Spook Warfare‘s particular depictions of them really communicates the appeal of the yōkai—they are strange, unique characters, both fearsome and appealing, which is really what we want all monsters to be.
A Scrapbook of Infinite Noise 